It is a known consumer habit to predissolve cleaning compositions, especially granular cleaning compositions such as granular laundry detergents. However, even though this habit is known and wide-spread, there are few tools and containers made specifically for the purpose of predissolving cleaning compositions. In addition to being messy, the containers habitually used by some consumers to predissolve cleaning compositions are large and bulky containers, such as mop buckets or wash basins. Some consumers usually use large amounts of water to completely predissolve detergents, believing that detergents must be completely dissolved to achieve greater performance. Accordingly, these large containers become unwieldy and inconvenient to use as well as to store.
It is also known that to adequately clean certain areas of garments, such as heavily soiled areas, spots, and collars, it is a common habit to pre-treat with cleaning products. Pre-treating usually entails washing or scrubbing a particularly soiled area with a commercially available pre-treatment detergent or a bleach product. Containers which are specifically used for pre-treating are available.
Pre-treatment cleaning compositions currently available contain a specific pre-treatment composition inside of a pre-treater, e.g., spray-on pre-treating compositions contained in a spraying applicator. When the pre-treatment composition is completely consumed, the pre-treater itself is discarded.
Current commercially available pre-treaters are used only for pre-treatment; thereafter, a separate detergent product is used to complete the wash cycle. For example, particularly soiled areas are pre-treated before placement of the item in the regular wash cycle of a washing machine, where a separate detergent composition is used for the regular wash cycle. Once the pre-treating process is complete, the pre-treater is stored until the next time it is necessary to pre-treat an item.